


Body Count

by emptypockets



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Family, Gallifrey angst, Hurt/Comfort, late series 12 but pre the haunting, pretty sad but there’s family fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22881763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptypockets/pseuds/emptypockets
Summary: The Doctor searches the ruins of Gallifrey for survivors, and the fam finally get to see her home.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 204





	Body Count

**Author's Note:**

> I made myself late for work for this, I could not be stopped.

There’s always been a tiny, minuscule sliver of a possibility that there are (or were) survivors on Gallifrey. 

The Doctor drags a hand down her face and closes it into a thoughtful fist beneath her chin, elbow propped on her left arm that she hugs tight to her middle. Coordinates pre-set, she simply stares at the activation lever. 

It would be nice to go back to the start, or rather, the instant before it. She’s not sure what she would’ve done to prevent the Master’s destruction, had she been in the loop at the time. Find him, possibly, though that would’ve been nearly impossible. Evacuate Gallifrey somehow, some way, with some trick _way_ up her sleeve? 

It’s too late now, she thinks bitterly. The laws of time hold their place in the universe despite their overseers being reduced to ash. It’s now her sole responsibility to keep the Web of Time in tact, and she could curse everything for it. 

She can’t go back, not all the way, at least, not to the instant before the start. She can, though, go back to the instant _after._

Because, yes. There has always been a possibility of survivors. A very unlikely, final hope sort of possibility, but one nonetheless. That flicker had first crossed the Doctor’s mind almost immediately, but at the time she found herself unable to trade that barely visible, barely _there_ hope for the possibility of disappointment. She didn’t have the capacity for the dead bodies she would inevitably come across. 

Because how, _how_ , could anyone survive that? Not just the nukes, the flames, because that’s impossible enough, but how could anyone survive the world shattering rage of a betrayed lunatic? 

She wasn’t there to stop him, and that should be answer enough. 

The Doctor pulls the lever, and her eyes don’t break away from it until the TARDIS has finished jostling and stills with a thud. 

She looks to the doors, then back to the console. Sharply, teeth gritted and face pinched. _Should she?_

The TARDIS has brought her to the immediate aftermath of the fallout. If there are _any_ survivors, this is the time to find them. The Doctor wavers. 

“There’s no one left.” She says quietly, to no one but herself. And she believes it. 

Her hand slips heavily from the lever as she reconsiders, takes a step to the right and begins to set the coordinates for a safe, quiet corner of a galaxy round the bend. There’s no one left. No one could possibly survive the tantrum of a madman with a matchbox. 

She pauses again, fingers wrapped under a switch that’s yet to be flipped. 

If there _are_ any survivors out there, and the Doctor walks the other way, then she’s just as bad as him. 

She lets her hand fall from the console for a second time and turns to the doors. If she’s going to be orphaned for a second time, she will play no part. 

The Doctor draws in a shaky breath and as she crosses the console room, the usual confidence to her step cannot be seen. When she reaches the doors, her fingertips stall against the wood. 

If there _aren’t_ any survivors, she doesn’t want to see what’s left up close. 

But, now she realizes, she has to. 

“I will have no role in this.” Her eyes flutter closed and she takes a stronger breath, pulls the door open, and the Doctor steps out into hell.   
  


* * *

Yaz and Ryan are the first to finish breakfast and discover the empty console room. Graham comes trudging in a few minutes later, unfinished cup of tea still in hand, to find them pushing and pulling and bumping the TARDIS doors. 

“Oi, what’s all this?” Graham picks up his pace a bit as he crosses the console room. 

“Have you seen the Doctor this morning?” Ryan asks anxiously with a shoulder pressed against the door, pausing for breath. 

“No, why? She not in here?” Graham twists to glance at the space behind him to find it, indeed, Doctor-less.

Yaz gives up on her own attempt altogether with a frustrated sigh and a large step back. “Doors aren’t opening. And we’re definitely somewhere new since we felt the TARDIS land earlier. 

“And she’s gone off on her own and locked us in here, apparently.” Ryan steps away as well and sags his shoulders in defeat. 

“Well are you sure it was her? Because her ship likes to mess about as well from time to time,” Graham takes a swig of his tea. “As we all know.” 

“If it _was_ the TARDIS, it’s probably because you do things like call her a ship.” Yaz pokes, stepping back up to the console. 

“Oi, don’t, you sound like the Doc.” Graham comes to join her, Ryan at his side, and takes another sip of his tea before wedging it between two switches. “So what does she expect us to do while she’s off exploring on her own? We should start having a humans-only day, just to one up her.” He nods excitedly, questioning, for agreement he doesn’t receive. 

“Where are we, is what I’m wondering.” Yaz says thoughtfully, eyeing one blank monitor and then the other. “But everything’s switched off it looks like.” 

Ryan walks back to the doors to stand on his toes, trying and failing to peer through the window. “Can’t see a thing through this glass, but it looks orange.” 

Graham sighs and reclaims his tea from the console to polish it off in one swig. “So what, we just gonna wait?” 

Yaz and Ryan exchange a glance, look back to Graham, and can only shrug.

* * *

The Doctor picks her way through rubble, scattered surface flame, and bone. 

From a distance, the ruins of Gallifrey paint a much more naive picture. Sickeningly beautiful are those flickers of burning light against the deep orange sky.

Up close, she can see _bodies._

Up close, she can see stories. 

She steps over a child’s shoe, and immediately averts her eyes anywhere else. 

_Sad_ stories. 

The Doctor grits her teeth and shoves her hands deep in her pockets, head ducked shamefully as she trudges on. No survivors here, but she expects nothing less. Onwards and upwards. 

* * *

An hour comes and goes, and the trio break off to amuse themselves in the depths of the TARDIS. 

Two more hours creep by but they stay busy, keep themselves entertained. Yaz and Ryan have a dip in the pool while Graham braves the mass expanse of the TARDIS library. 

Hour six hits, and Ryan closes his game of _Fifa_ and tosses the controller onto his bed. The Doctor shouldn’t be gone for this long. 

He rolls out of his beanbag chair and exits his bedroom to find Yaz down the corridor, walking towards him with downtrodden steps. 

“Hey.” Ryan greets her, hands in his pockets and leaning against the wall. 

Yaz crosses her arms loosely and stops in front of him, and she’s anxious when she speaks. “Hey… you want to try the doors again with me?” 

He gives her an encouraging smile, only halfway there, and nods his assent. 

When they reach the console room, Graham is way ahead of them. 

“These bloody doors.” Graham gives the handle one more hopeless pull before turning to face his company, and his brow is creased with exasperation. “I don’t know if I should be cross or concerned.” 

“Still locked then?” Yaz sighs and uselessly goes to examine the blank monitors again. 

“Won’t budge.” Graham grumbles, dusting his hands off. “But really, should we be worried about her?” 

“Don’t know, but I am anyways.” Ryan admits, and Yaz gives a small hum of agreement. “You think she’s safe?” 

“Depends on where we are, doesnt it?” Graham looks to the doors pointedly. “Probably not, since we can’t get to her, and that’s pretty on brand for our luck.” 

“Maybe she just wants to be alone?” Yaz offers, looking for anything to keep her controlled concern from spiraling into panic. 

Graham shrugs, and Ryan looks down at the floor. 

* * *

There’s no survivors in the next village either. Or the one after that. Or the one after that. 

The Doctor finds herself counting the bodies. She doesn’t want to, and she tries not to by averting her eyes and watching the sky burn instead of the people, but she can _feel_ every single one of them as she walks past, steps over, maneuvers around. 

She feels sick. 

The Citadel is in her range now, and she homes in on it with heavy lidded eyes, stalks toward it on legs that don’t feel like her own. 

She trudges from one sector to another, worming her way through to the heart of the Citadel, and blinds herself to the crumbling pieces of monuments that thud at her feet. 

The Doctor reaches the eye of the storm, and lifts her gaze from her boots for the first time in a while. 

What was once described as glory now takes the form of catastrophe. The landmarks of the Citadel stand at half their given height, breaking apart by the instant. It’s particularly... _bad_ here. The Master must’ve saved the best for the best. 

Here at the heart, in the center of it all, the Doctor’s mind has everything in reach. Everyone, _anyone_ out there, if there’s anyone left, will be able to hear her. 

She closes her eyes and clenches her fists. This is it, this is her last hope. Either she’s alone again, or she’ll have a job to do. 

She doesn’t want to know for sure, she longs to let that flicker of hope sit in the back of her mind. 

But she has to know. 

“Contact.” 

The Doctor reaches her out, stretches her consciousness to the farthest corners of Gallifrey. Every village, every home, around every corner, under every bed. 

She grits her teeth and raises her fingers to her temple. _“Contact.”_

Flames crackle in her ears and redden her cheeks. She waits. Listens. Waits, _waits..._

Nothing. 

The Doctor opens her eyes, drops her hand limply to her side, and her last hope falls with it. 

* * *

“Only thing we haven’t tried is begging the TARDIS to open the door.” Ryan points out to Yaz’s pacing, Graham’s fretting. 

“Be my guest, son.” Graham scratches the side of his face tiredly. “She’s been gone all day. I say now’s as good a time as any to whip out the last resorts.” 

“I don’t want to beg the TARDIS, you beg the TARDIS.” Ryan interjects, eyeing Graham cautiously from the other side of the console. 

“What? No, I don’t want to look daft.” Graham takes a step back with hands raised defensively. 

“It _was_ your idea, Ryan.” Yaz cocks her head to one side, only half trained on their dispute. 

“Yeah but if any of us are gonna look daft, shouldn’t it be Graham?” He gestures to the man pointedly, who recoils in offense. “He’s already got the ball rollin’.” 

“Ta very much.” 

Yaz just rolls her eyes and goes back to picking at her nails from her spot sat against a crystal pillar. The TARDIS has started to feel a bit eery, and a bit too vacant despite its three remaining inhabitants. Still powered down, still entirely unhelpful. 

Graham’s quick to crack under Ryan’s persistence and is soon standing uncomfortably still, hands in pockets, looking awkwardly up at the ceiling. 

“Hi, yes, hello there.” He starts, words laced with uncertainty. “This is Graham.” 

“‘Course it knows it’s you!” Ryan blurts out. 

“This is _Graham.”_ He repeats steely, with an annoyed glance Ryan’s way. “Was just wondering if you could be a dear and open the doors of us. We’re quite worried about your pilot, you see…” 

* * *

By the time the Doctor finds her way out of the Capitol, back in the direction of the TARDIS, she’s properly struggling. Her legs strain under her weight and every step seems to send exhaustion deeper into her bones. Her skin feels like it’s ablaze and she blinks rapidly as smoke attacks her watery eyes. 

She’ll make it back to the TARDIS long before the elements kill her, but she’s got to actually _get_ _there_ first. The task is a momentary, welcomed distraction. _Stay on your feet. Get back to the others._

She reckons she’s been gone close to twelve hours. They’re sure to have questions, unfortunately. 

She comes to a fork in the road, and chooses another direction entirely. A shortcut she and Koschei had discovered as children, and vowed to keep secret, leading to the outskirts of the city where the TARDIS awaits. 

The Doctor’s patted down five small separate fires on her coat and trousers by the time she reaches the dried out river. She turns to the right, remembering the path clearly, and stumbles on. 

She walks, and walks, and _walks,_ until her entire body is screaming for rest and finally, she falls. 

It’s graceless and somehow unexpected, and she’s not quick enough to catch herself this time. The side of her head catches a rock as she lands, and for a dangerous few moments the Doctor is dazed and unmoving. 

Her head spins, her vision swims, and a nap sounds _really_ nice. 

The TARDIS’s intrusion in her mind is also unexpected, and forces her eyes open. She squints against the throb in her temple, the scrambling of her thoughts as she sorts the link in her haze. 

_Get up._

The Doctor scowls, digs her hands into the dusty ground, grunting and moaning as she forces herself to her knees, then her feet, wavering but driven. 

She walks on, paying closer mind to her step, absentmindedly raises one hand to the side of her head with a wince. 

By the time the TARDIS is in view, she’s staggering. By the time she crosses the distance halfway, she’s falling. 

She does a slightly better job of cushioning her fall this time, but the impact still rattles her bones, and she groans. 

_Get up_. The TARDIS commands again, and the Doctor moves to shove herself up only to flop back down when the world tilts dangerously.

“I can’t.” Blackness creeps into the corners of her vision, and her heavy eyes droop down. 

_Get up!_

The Doctor clenches her fist and chokes back a cry of frustration. _“I can’t.”_

_Get up, or I’m letting them come get you._

“You locked them in?” The Doctor mumbles, squinting. “That was a good call, actually. Didn’t think about that.” 

She tries once more to haul herself upright, and when she doesn’t succeed, she doesn’t bother again. 

She breathes harshly into the dirt, eyes sliding closed on their own behalf. “Let ‘em come.” 

* * *

“-and if you could just let us go and look for her, well, that’d be grand.” 

There’s a single low chime of a warning bell sounding from everywhere at once, followed by a click from the doors and a hoot of surprise from Graham. 

“ _Yes,_ that’ll do it. All in a day’s work, then, you’re very welcome.” Graham grins ear to ear up at the TARDIS, clearly pleased with himself. 

“Don’t get too full of it.” Ryan warns, hopping down the single step to join Yaz at the doors. 

She swings one open wide to peer through, and for a moment Yaz is frozen in place. “What…” 

Ryan furrows his brow and watches the sight before him while Graham comes to stand behind the two of them, hands on their shoulders to gently shove them aside and see for himself. 

“Blimey.” Graham gapes at was once probably a very beautiful city. It’s beautiful now, in its own way, crawling with licks of burning orange and hazed by plumes of smoke. “Not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.” 

“Oh my god,” Yaz breathes as her eyes find a figure in the near distance. A mess of grey coat and soot-streaked blonde hair, unmoving, surrounded by the crackle of flame amidst bramble and debris. She points at it, wide eyed and fretful. “Look.” 

By the time Ryan and Graham have found what’s caught her attention, Yaz is already out of the TARDIS and finding her footing through rubble and ash. 

“Yaz, be careful!” Graham hollers, and he and a Ryan come hustling after her. 

Yaz steps over a boulder and around a cluster of fire, ducks under a toppled tree branch and picks up her pace once she’s in the clear. 

“Doctor?” She calls out when she’s close enough to make out her face, and the Doctor stirs at her voice without lifting her head. 

“Doctor.” Anxiety slips into her voice as she drops to her knees at her friend’s side, places a mindful hand on her shoulder to help her roll onto her back. 

There’s a pinch at her brow and a slow trail of blood coming from a spot at her temple, and Yaz swipes her hair out of the way to gain better access, lightly touches the space next to it with her fingertips. 

The Doctor hisses and wrinkles her forehead at the contact, head tilting slightly away from Yaz and eyes cracking open to find Ryan and Graham coming to kneel on the ground at her right. 

“Doc, you alright?” Graham’s tone wavers with concern as he hovers over her, eyes beseeching. 

“Who, me?” Her words are slow and wobbly. “Always.” 

Yaz gapes at her for a moment, eyeing her coat that’s dirtied with ash and charred at certain spots. Her face is dirty, like she’s been rolling around in the dust, and Yaz lifts a hand to pluck a twig from the Doctor’s hair. 

“You scared us half to death.” Ryan mumbles, clearly struggling with the oxygen levels in the air as he draws in a deep breath. Yaz feels a similar ache in her chest. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean it.” The Doctor says quietly, eyes fluttering and threatening to close again if not for Yaz’s hand that taps at her cheek. 

“Oi, no falling asleep on us. Come on.” Yaz slips an arm behind the Doctor’s back, grabs her hand, and heaves. “Up you come.” 

The Doctor groans quietly once she’s sitting upright, and Yaz and Ryan each keep a hand on her shoulders to steady her as she wavers. 

They hook their arms under hers then, and brace to stand. With sluggish legs and a bit of a breathless struggle, they drag her to her feet. 

The Doctor lists to one side when she’s up, right into Yaz, who accepts the Doctor’s weight readily and holds her close with an arm around her waist. 

“What the hell happened?” Graham is right at the Doctor’s back as they start towards the TARDIS, hands readied in case she falls. 

Her head droops and heavy eyes are fixed on her boots, and she doesn’t respond for the entirety of the slow trek through thick heat. 

They drag her into the TARDIS and prop her up against a pillar, Yaz and Ryan gently helping maneuver her arms out of her coat while Graham fusses over the wound on the side of her head, dabbing at it with its sleeve even as she winces. 

“Doc.” Graham shifts into her direct field of view then, and she has no choice but to look him in the eye. “Where are we? What have you been doing all day?” 

Her gaze slips from his and she drops her head back against the crystal pillar. She’s clearly disoriented, struggling against the planet’s elements’ attack on her body, but her eyes are distant in another way, and her lips are drawn into a downtrodden frown. 

“Looking for survivors.” She responds vaguely, eyes fluttering before she forces them open. “There aren’t any.” 

The humans exchange a wary look, and Yaz feels fear grip her heart. 

“Where are we?” She echoes Graham’s question, and the Doctor’s listless expression droops even further. 

“My home planet.” She says it without looking at them, without reaping their looks of horror. 

“What, Gallifrey?” Ryan stutters, now sitting cross legged in front of her. 

“Gallifrey.” She breathes out, and swallows thickly around the swelling in her throat. 

Yaz’s limbs suddenly feel very heavy with the revelation and she sits back on her heels, hands resting nervously on her knees. She doesn’t know what to say. “Did that just happen?” 

The Doctor starts to shake her head, then stops herself. “No, but I brought the TARDIS back to the point right after it happened. So, yes, at the same time.” Her words are coming out a bit stronger and she takes in a couple deep breaths of clean air, but her eyes are still glossed over with a pain Yaz can’t comprehend. 

They’re stunned to silence for a moment, because no consolations seem to fit. Yaz yearns for the perfect string of words to ease the crease at the Doctor’s brow, the tears sitting idle in her red-rimmed eyes, but if there are any, she can’t find them. 

They sit with her for a few minutes, the sound of each other’s breathing the only thing filling the silence of the console room. The Doctor’s eyes droop again, and Yaz reaches out to shake her shoulder. 

“Right, you’re off the clock for a bit.” Graham decides, hands on his knees as he braces to stand. “Let’s get you some clean clothes and a nap.” 

The Doctor frowns deeper in disapproval, and tries to brush them off with a shake of her head. 

“No, Doc, let us.” Graham pauses with a hand on her arm, and his voice cracks with emotion, and a bit of desperation. 

She tries to pull away, to draw in on herself, but Yaz catches her hand in her own before she can hide it. 

“Doctor, please.” She speaks quietly and cautiously, fingers curling around the Doctor’s to squeeze them lightly and hold the Doctor’s attention. 

If her entire planet is dead, then there’s not a consolation in the universe that’ll soothe her hearts, Yaz knows it. 

But they can help her to bed, they can get her a change of clothes, they can get the ash and dirt out of her hair and stop the bleeding on the side of her head. 

They can help, in some way shape or form, and with that knowledge, they won’t be leaving her alone tonight. 

“Please.” She repeats softly. “Let us look after you.” 

There’s a concerning instant of silence when her eyes drift closed, but her body uncurls ever so slightly, and she frees her other hand. 

Ryan takes it while Yaz holds tight to the other, and with Graham’s extra assistance they get her back on her feet. Slow and unsteady is the trek down the corridor, but the Doctor’s soon in fresh clothes, her hair is back to it’s usual vibrance, and there’s a plaster over the cleaned gash at her temple. 

She’s tucked into bed now, dead to the world. Yaz is sitting against the headboard at her side, Graham in the armchair, Ryan cross legged at the foot of the bed. She’s breathing evenly and deeply, and they chat quietly amongst themselves so as not to wake her. 

Yaz revels in the peaceful expression on her face in contrast to the distress she found there before. 

If her entire planet is dead, there’s nothing they can do, or say, to make it hurt any less. 

But they’re here, for as long as she needs them, and they’re not going anywhere any time soon. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Reviews are always appreciated, and if you have any prompts for me based off of Ascension of the Cyberman let me know, and I’ll be posting them in my one shot series (Darkness Never Sustains)


End file.
